


A Wealth Of Thoughts Locked Up In Cages

by notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Friendship/Love, Love Confessions, Martinski, Pansexual Lydia Martin, Past Allison Argent/Lydia Martin, Post-Episode: s03e24 The Divine Move, Stydia, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:33:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl/pseuds/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place some unspecified time after ‘The Divine Move.’ After Allison’s death and the defeat of the Nogitsune, Lydia and Stiles’ friendship takes a new direction as they struggle to move past their grief and guilt. One night, after one too many drinks, secrets are shared and it is revealed that they have more in common than anyone would've ever guessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Those Wild Eyes, A Psychedelic Silhouette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is taken from a lyric from the Gabrielle Aplin song ‘Let Me In’ from her album ‘English Rain’ and the chapter name from her song ‘Salvation’ in the same album. This artist is currently one of my favorites and her music ties in so well to Martinski due to her song ‘Start of Time’ playing during their panic attack kiss scene so her lyrics and songs will probably be a reoccurring theme through the fic.

          If someone had told Lydia Martin two years ago that she would ever be spending a Friday night drinking and playing strip poker with Stiles Stilinski, she would’ve laughed right in their face. Yet there they were, in her pristine bedroom, finishing off her mother’s favorite bottle of white wine with creased cards artfully arranged between them.

          Stiles had asked her half-jokingly to play and she agreed without hesitation. By now, he should’ve known better, that it was too good to be true. She never allowed herself to show any kind of vulnerability if she could help it, not without careful planning and purpose. Of course, Lydia had neglected to mention that her father had taught her how to win at an abundance of things and one of her strongest games was poker. That and his money were the few useful things she was left before he abandoned their family to start a new one—a better one—with his perky, young secretary. They were currently expecting their third child and the robin’s egg blue birth announcement was scorched and torn into four deliberate pieces at the bottom of the Martins’ fireplace. A seething rage filled her as she recalled the pettiness that had destroyed her childhood.

          “Y’know, when you said you’d play, I was kind of hoping that both of us would be half naked rather than me just being pretty damn close to naked.” Stiles said lightheartedly, bringing her back to the present. He sat cross-legged on her bed, wearing nothing but heather-grey boxer briefs and white socks. He looked so out of place compared to all those who had laid there before him—no lust in his eyes, no expectations of who she could be for him.

          Two years ago, she wouldn’t have ever suspected that underneath his hoodies and ill-fitting, plain clothes would be lean muscle and clear skin. Or that she would be mildly attracted to the person he was becoming with his messy dark hair—thank god, he had grown it out—and ecstatic grin and the evolving confidence and eloquence of him. It felt like such a long time ago when she was unaware of so much, unaware of him.

          The wine was taking its toll on her body. Its chemical effects on her brain were now interfering with the process of confused neurotransmitters, suppressing the release of glutamate while increasing GABA production. She could list all the individual parts of the brain and how the alcohol was fucking it up, like the lethargy spreading through her due to her medulla oblongata. Sometimes she resented being unable to forget the mechanics of her physiology, even at a time like this. She should be losing herself to stupid teenage bliss, not recalling neurological progression and changes. She could feel the dopamine lifting her mood, making her giddy, and her cerebral cortex becoming less focused and more impulsive. She wasn’t drunk, not even close, but she enjoyed the light buzz.

          Lydia couldn’t help but to wonder how well Stiles could handle his liquor. It was no secret between them that he wasn’t fond of the white wine. His thinly veiled attempts to disguise his disgust were half-hearted if anything. She was greatly amused by the scrunched up face he made whenever he forced himself to swallow the drink. Actually, she thought it was incredibly cute that he thought he was hiding it oh-so-very-well from her, but she preferred it when she wasn’t the drunkest person in the room.

          “Oh stop it,” she commanded after he took his seventh sip. “You don’t have to pretend to like it on my account.” He gave her an incredulous look, knowing she could’ve relieved him of his social politeness earlier. Though she was much too occupied going through her mental catalogue of her mother’s liquor cabinet to notice. Lydia knew that her mother wouldn’t mind a couple of missing bottles so long as there wasn’t any vomit or broken furniture anywhere and an unplanned grandchild.

          _Scotch and tequila wouldn’t suit him,_ she thought to herself. _Red wine feels much too formal for tonight. Perhaps vodka would be more to his taste._

          A deep sigh passed his lips, his shoulders slumped with defeat. He reached over her, his bare skin brushing across hers, and set his glass down on her night stand. Then he starred her down, his brown eyes serious and his forehead wrinkled with worry. “Is it _that_ obvious?”

          “It was an acquired taste for me too,” she confessed with a smile. She had never told anyone that. It was odd how often she found herself telling Stiles little things about herself that she had never felt the need to share with others. It was exhausting being Lydia Martin, wearing a different mask for everyone in her life, and the ease she felt with him reminded her of being with Allison. It hurt, but in a good way and it was the kind of pain she’d rather endure over the guilt.

          Life had become so strange since Scott McCall had joined the lacrosse team their sophomore year. It had seemed so insignificant at the time, but now they knew it marked the beginning of an awakening force in Beacon Hills and a terrifying journey for them.

          Stiles crossed his arms in front of his chest and his movement drew her eye to the goose bumps on his skin. She put a cold hand on his arm and found that his skin was still warmer than hers. He attempted to suppress a shiver. His right leg was bouncing up and down as usual. It was rare to see him stay still at any given moment, even in his sleep.

          She recalled the first night after Stiles had been released from the hospital. Sheriff Stilinski had confided in her about his son’s continuing nightmares and how he called out for her while he dreamt. At first she was lost as to how she could help, but the sight of him scared her into action. The shadows under his eyes were worse than ever, his concentration was nonexistent yet he was fearful of losing consciousness, and his body was covered in an array of colorful bruises. Apparently, he was sleepwalking now, pounding on the walls, kicking and screaming, as though he was still imprisoned in his own body. She knew she had to do something before it was too late to save him.

          They fell into an odd pattern of switching houses—weekdays at the Stilinskis’ and weekends at the Martins’—and a sort of domestic arrangement. Lydia helped Stiles understand trigonometry, Stiles taught her how to cook, then they both debated about the merits of nuclear power and apocalypse scenarios until Lydia’s mandated bedtime of ten thirty. It was a struggle to get him to sleep in the first place, but the real dilemma arose when the night terrors began. She would stroke his hair, sing to him, hold him tight in hopes of redeeming herself. She knew she could not abandon him as she had last time. She was his anchor and she was going to ground him to this world, to her, no matter what supernatural calamity came their way.

          After several weeks, it became easier to calm him and the night terrors became less frequent. There was still plenty of kicking and screaming, but there were hours of peace and Stiles was slowly returning to his normal self. No one was really quite sure of what was going on between the two, but the pack was too preoccupied in their own problems to notice as much as they normally would. Just knowing that he was getting better was enough to stop them from questioning the recent shift in their relationship. Though Melissa and the Sheriff might have had more to do with the lack of interrogation than they knew.

          “May I please put my clothes back on?” he inquired, attempting to keep the pleading tone from his voice. He could tell that she was distracted tonight. She was constantly zoning off, more so than usual, with a confused look on her pretty face. There was a wealth of thoughts locked up in cages between those wild eyes and he desired it all.

          “That wouldn’t be very fair, now would it?” she countered, well-aware of her lack of focus. Now she was determined to keep herself grounded to tonight. “I’ve gotten this far and to allow you to forfeit before your inevitable loss would be a sign of weakness. Finish the game and then you can put them back on.”

          “What if I could offer you something better than my naked body?”

          “Is that possible?” she teased but her interest was piqued. Her wide eyes and the curious curve of her lips told him to continue his proposal.

          “We can make a trade of sorts—an article of clothing for a secret. If you think it’s interesting enough than I get to put something back on. If not, I’ll take something off. Of course, to even the score, you’d have to participate in the stripping aspect as well.”

          “That feels too tame.” He could practically see the cogs spinning in her beautiful mind, picking apart his idea until it was the best of both of them. She complimented his creativity and maximized his efficiency. There was something incredible about it. People assumed that he was only in love with the idea of Lydia Martin, with her looks, but they were dead wrong. Her strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, and petite figure were all just nice perks. It was her brain that attracted him to her. Her big, beautiful brain with all of its complexity. “What if we made it favors for secrets? That way you’re allowed to ask for your clothes back, but you have a lot more options. It feels like a much fairer trade. Secrets aren’t cheap.”

          He grinned. “Alright, let’s find out what the great Lydia Martin is hiding.” He held out his right hand, offering a pinky, and she wrapped her delicate finger around his long, slim one and the real fun began.


	2. The Reasons That Hurt Me The Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the inquisition can begin, Lydia and Stiles are quickly sidetracked. As Stiles becomes more familiar with Lydia, he realizes that there are a lot more shocking secrets underneath the surface of that pretty smile than he suspected. He struggles with finding the right words while she struggles to let him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from ‘The Liar and the Lighter’ from Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘Acoustic EP,’ originally sung by You and Me at Six. Both versions of the song are actually pretty good. (I wonder if anyone is actually listening to these songs or not?)

          Before they could start the inquisition, Lydia insisted on bringing up something that Stiles was happily willing to drink. “It’s no fun to drink by yourself,” she pouted before leaving the bed and taking her warmth with her. She handed him her iPhone before closing the door, knowing that he knew her password. It was Allison’s birthday. Stiles didn’t understand how she could endure that reminder every time she used her  phone, but maybe he could understand that she thought it was better to remember her best friend, no matter how much it hurt, rather than to let her slip from her mind. Sometimes, in the haze of all the panic and danger, it was easy to forget that they weren’t just soldiers, they all somebody’s kid, someone’s best friend, someone’s lover.

          He began with _Flappy Birds_ , dead set on gaining a new personal best. It didn’t take him long to lose interest in the game. It wasn’t nearly as much fun when Lydia wasn’t there to mock him for being unable to beat her high score of 666. When he put in her headphones and started her music, the volume was so deafening that he nearly fell off the bed in shock. It was probably set so high to block out her banshee episodes.

          That’s what she was, a banshee—a Sídhe, which was a type of faerie, capable of foretelling death. A wailing woman. No one else, except maybe the Argents and the Hales suspected that she was anything more than psychic. Stiles had spent hours searching for answers, wandering through libraries, contacting mythology specialists all across the West Coast, and searching miscellaneous websites. He knew that only having “something” to label herself unnerved Lydia and he hated seeing her scared. Until recently, she had always had the answers. It reminded him of the night they had found her naked in the woods, shivering and helpless. At that moment, he vowed that he would do everything in his power to protect her.

          He couldn’t help but to smirk at the thought of Lydia Martin fainting in the arms of a knight in shining armor. How naïve he had been at the time. How could he have mistaken her for anything less than a tigress? He now knew that she did not desire a superhero to sweep her off her feet. No, she wanted an equal to walk through the dark with her, armed with an open mind and a sharp tongue.

          As much as he loved thinking about Lydia, Stiles decided that playing _Temple Run_ would be easier to walk away from for when the actual Lydia returned with booze. He was a little more than pleased to know that most of the games on her phone were there specifically to entertain him.

          After taking yet another wrong turn, he finally gave up and settled on looking through her pictures. There were thousands of them spanning from her sophomore year alone and she refused to let anyone delete any of them. There were several pictures of him taken within the past several weeks, some where he slept and others were he was cooking in his mom’s apron. He didn’t know that she had taken most of these, but he liked knowing that he mattered enough to take pictures of. He admired her gorgeous poses, displaying her carefully picked assemblies, and chuckled at the little things she documented throughout an average day in Lydia Martin’s shoes—which appeared quite high off the ground and uncomfortable. It was painfully clear she had outgrown this town so long ago yet there was still an appreciation, a strange attachment, for the place she called home. There were quite a few pictures of Allison on there as well. Some with her wearing unguarded smiles, unaware of Lydia’s camera, and others where their faces were pressed together to fit in the frame, bright eyed and clueless as to what their future held for them. There was something about the look in Lydia’s eyes. It was such a familiar emotion. If only he could place it . . .

          The door creaked open and he looked up from the phone to see her standing with her signature smile, the one that whispered ‘I know something you don’t,’ with two bottles of vodka and two shot glasses in hand. She must’ve stopped by the laundry room because she smelled of lavender and had changed out of her earlier outfit. Instead of four inch heels and a short lace dress that she often worried was a little too short—of course, she’d never admit it to another soul—into black pajama shorts and Stiles’ favorite sweater with her hair in a messy bun. At home Lydia was much more laid back and quicker to smile compared to at school Lydia who wore her perfection like battle gear.

          “Oh, stop staring!” she scolded as she kicked the door behind her closed. “If you have something to say, say it.”

          “You were in love with her, weren’t you?” Stiles inquired. The tone of his voice told her that it wasn’t a question or a request of confirmation. He was allowing her the courtesy of letting her know that he knew. He was slowly learning to approach sensitive topics with her.

          She froze halfway from the door to the bed, unable to breathe or move. For a moment, she considered lying to him. It had been her secret to bear for so long. No one ever suspected or questioned her, [not even after her kiss](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1360747), which she found herself reacting with a mixed sense of relief and impatience. She had been ‘boy crazy Lydia Martin’—‘Allison’s hot best friend’—to the world and now her friend had been laid to rest, she was reassured that no one would ever dig up her feelings. She knew that Stiles was intuitive, more so than anyone gave him credit for, but it still baffled her that he had managed to figure it out.

     “Yes,” she answered cautiously. “How did you know?”

     “Lydia, I’ve been in love with you since the third freaking grade. I’m the guy who never had a chance with you, spent years mooning after someone way above my league, and the little amount of focus I had was split between you and my best friend. Of course I was going to notice if you of all people started exhibiting signs of being unrequitedly in love.”

          She nodded understanding and allowed herself to breathe once more. Sometimes she forgot that Stiles was in love with her—actually, that was a lie. She never forgot, she sometimes found herself wondering what he truly thought of her— her assumptions could only get her so far. It was just that she forgot that the part where it could actually interfere with their friendship. He had toned down his eagerness and it was just so easy to be with him. She found herself worrying less and laughing when she was with him and that she could not thank him enough for.

          He gathered the cards and patted the bed sheets as a silent ‘come here.’ She complied, lying down next to him and handing him the bottles to place on the nightstand. They were testing out the waters of this new kind of intimacy and sharing. Neither of them was particularly open people and their friendship was stranger than any other in the pack. They had no one to look up to for a reference.

          “Does this count?” Lydia asked, breaking the silence. “For that game, that is.”

          “No, we’ll start after we talk about this. That is, if you don’t mind talking about this.

          There was so much to say on the matter, but she was hesitant. For over a year, she had been aching to tell somebody, anybody really, about the girl she had fallen in love with. How would you start this conversation? “So I’ve been in love with your best friend’s on-and-off girlfriend . . .” The thought perplexed her but who better to discuss unrequited love than with Stiles? Finally, she settled on saying something.

          “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how you’ve managed.” She stretched her legs out on top of his lap. “Every day, since I met her, I could feel myself going crazy—though the voices of the dead might contributed more to that than I’m willing to say. Just being around her, knowing that she could never love me. It was the most painful experience of my life yet she was the only thing on my mind.”

          “They call it a ‘crush’ for a reason. It literally crushes you when you’re not on their radar, especially when they don’t realize that every time they’re in sight, your heart skips a beat or their voice is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. It’s difficult to understand why someone else loves another, but it’s so clear to you even when it’s not. It’s just them. The little quirks like the way you bit your lip when you’re actually stumped or the scary amount of precision that goes into your morning make-up ritual. It makes you so infallibly human and that makes you lovable.”

          It was moments like this that she could feel the blood rushing to her face and hyper focused on every word, every detail of Stiles Stilinski. He acted as though he were serenading her with poetry, as though she were a princess to be courted. Regardless of who she dated, no one had ever taken the time to be so romantic. Even Jackson had decided that their relationship was cat and mouse, a constant struggle for control. He was above flowers and jewelry for the sake of affection. With Stiles, he would find little gifts just because it suited his fancy. A mix CD because “it sounded like something you’d like” or a candy bar because “you said these were your favorites.” Something about that kind of treatment made her flustered like a love-struck schoolgirl and she liked it. She enjoyed being admired by someone so sweet and maybe she liked _who_ was being so sweet.

          “You moved from third person to first person perspective.” Lydia teased. She wanted the attention to be focused on his blunder rather than her flushed face. After years of social politics, she had mastered the art of spotlighting. He looked away from her with a guilty smile on his face. “You are right though, about being in love. I could never place when I fell in love or why but I was reminded whenever she smiled or she drew an arrow of the reasons to love her. She was brilliant, passionate beyond belief, and so very brave. And oftentimes, she was so stubborn that it hurt, but that determination made her strong and so alive. A true huntress. But in the end, those are the reasons that hurt me the most. Because if she wasn’t those things she would alive today, but if she wasn’t then I couldn’t have ever loved her the way I do.” She could feel tears welling in her eyes. After weeks of focusing on Stiles’ night terrors, school, and everyone else’s well-being, she had forgotten to mourn for Allison. She desperately needed to cry for her best friend, everything she was, and everything she would never have the chance to be.

          He grabbed one of the bottles and the glasses. He opened it with his teeth and poured the drinks. She had been so preoccupied that she had forgotten that they were here to get drunk and have fun. Tonight was about appreciating the simplicity of teenage stupidity, not worrying about the upcoming supernatural forces or whose funeral they would be attending next. Her mother was gone for the weekend and they intended to put use to every precious minute they had.

          “Time to play?” he asked, offering her a glass.

          “Time to play,” she agreed, taking the glass from him and downing the shot.


End file.
